Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Scotty Wright: My Hero

These past couple weeks, I've had a chance to spend some time with an incredible musician, teacher and person in general...Scotty Wright. A couple weeks back, I had heard news of an American jazz singer in Chengdu, playing at local 5-star hotel the Shangri-La. As the music communitiy is quite small here, it wasn't long before I met him at a jam session at local ex-pat hotspot Cafe Paname. The jazz group Bossma was backing him up as he tore it up for a full house. I was really impressed at his versatility and endless energy. It's amazing how much better you play when there's someone there who you can feed off of.

Since that gig, we got a chance to play together at the Shangri-La for an Oktoberfest celebration. They actually booked a German oom-pah band from Hong Kong, but they had some visa troubles. Enter: us! The gig was four sets of music for the outdoor section of the hotel's Irish bar: Mooney's. The place was complete with ten course buffet, pretzel trees and an endless supply of "real" German beer. The band was Scotty, myself, Ma Jun (Machine) on drums and a guitarist, whom I cannot remember his name at this moment. In the above video, we are deep in one of our many blues jams. To tell you the truth, Scotty and I were a little worried about the musical content, as we had never played with the two locals before. However, all four sets went off without a hitch. I've found that anywhere you go, if you get four random professional musicians together, they can not only make a show, but it can be a lot of fun!After about three hours of playing, I had to fun to my night gig at the Music House. By that point I was a little tired, but definitely warmed up to play some real jazz. Scotty showed up later to jam with our two jazz singers: Chi Chi and Fei Fei (they love double names in China). He once again brought down the house with his unique vocal talents and taught us all something in the process. Beam us up Scotty! (ok that was lame)

About Me

Brent Weber is currently teaching saxophone at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu China. As well as teaching 15 students, he gets many chances to gig around Chengdu and surrounding cities. This is his second year living in China after finishing his Bachelor degree at Southern Oregon University and Masters degree at University of Georgia. He hopes this blog gives you some insight into his adventures in the orient!